Security and privacy are perpetual concerns for users of mobile communication devices. As mobile communication devices are increasingly used to handle a wide variety of sensitive data, documents, and communications, the loss or compromise of a mobile communication device may prove to be a costly and time-consuming security breach.
One method of securing a mobile communication device is through authentication of the user. Some more conventional methods of authentication, such as the use of passwords, are quite common. Recent authentication systems authenticate users based on contextual information, such as the location or current network of the mobile communication device when authentication is attempted. However, systems that use authentication based on context information may be less robust and may fail when a mobile communication device moves outside of its usual context. For example, when a user travels to another location (e.g., for work or vacation), many detectable elements may change, including aspects of a user's behavior, proximate devices, geographic location, and detectable networks. Thus, ironically, at a time when device safety and authentication may be most important (since losing the mobile communication device or personal information may cause more inconvenience and damage), changes in context can render a context-based user authentication system less robust or even ineffectual.